great deal of malignant and meretricious nonsense has been uttered about Shakspeare's marriage and wedded life. Some say that he married so soon because he was compelled to do so in order to vindicate the lady's fair fame. Others say he was unhappy with his wife, because, firstly, she was older than he; because, secondly, he only left her in his will "his second best bed;" because, thirdly, all poets are or should be unhappy in their domestic connexions; we wonder they did not add, because, fourthly, he was married in the month of November, which, next to May, superstition has tabooed as an unlucky month for the nuptial ceremony. Such are specimens of the silly and gossipping manner in which some parts of Shakspeare's life have been treated by persons who were, no doubt, disappointed because they found no mention of the name "Shakspeare" in the records of Doctors' Commons, and could never forgive him because he died in his wife's arms. Anne Hathaway appears to have been a suitable match to him in degree, in substance, and in external appearance, and probably made him happier than Lady Jane Grey with all her Greek, or Madame de Stael with all her German, would have done. That at one period of his life he fell into errors and estrangements has been argued doubtfully from the Sonnets; but whatever these errors were, they seem to have passed away long before, at Stratford, he surrendered his spirit to its Creator. That he was compelled to marry her is proved to be false, and the statement is founded on a confusion of marriage with the then common practice of previous betrothal before witnesses.

How, why, and when this supreme spirit first visited London, are questions which have puzzled all his biographers and commentators extremely. The common cry about his journey there used to be "stole away," some saying from a butcher's shop, others from an attorney's office, others from a broken deer park, and others from a scolding or snarling wife! It appears now, however, that all these theories are incredible, and that Shakspeare's visit to London was not a flight, nor a desertion, but a voluntary emigration. In the baptismal register of Stratford, for May 1583, we find the mention of the

baptism of Susanna, eldest child of the poet. Two years after, the baptism of Harriet and Judith Shakspeare is recorded. It follows from this that his wife continued to reside in Stratford. On the other hand, we discover no trace of him in the records of Court-leet, Bailiff's court, or Commonhall. This might, however, have been because he was a minor; but even after he became of age, there is still no mention of his name. It is inferred, therefore, that he left Stratford for London at or about the termination of his minority-i.e. in the year 1585; and as he continued to return there every year, it is evident that he had gone to push his fortune for the sake of his family, whom probably he brought to reside with him as soon as he could. On repairing to London, he seems immediately to have connected himself with the theatres. The well-known story of his holding horses at the door of the theatre is another of those fables which have yielded to the stern research of later times. An ingenious writer in Blackwood has finely described the supposed effects of the first sight of a London theatre on the enthusiastic mind of the poet. Shakspeare thus speaks, "I remember when I first came to London, and began to be a hanger-on at the theatres, a great desire grew on me for more learning than had fallen to my share at Stratford, but fickleness and impatience, and the bewilderment caused by new objects, dispersed that wish into empty air. Ah! my lord [Bacon], you cannot conceive what a strange thing it was for so impressible a rustic to find himself turned loose in the midst of Babel. My faculties wrought to such a degree that I was in a dream all day long. My bent was not then toward comedy, for most objects seemed noble and of much consideration. The music at the theatre ravished my young heart, and, amidst the goodly company of spectators, I beheld afar off, with dazzled sight, beauties who seemed to outparagon Cleopatra of Egypt. Some of these primitive fooleries were afterwards woven into Romeo and Juliet."

Extreme obscurity rests on many questions connected with Shakspeare's early life in London-such as whether he commenced his connexion with the stage as an actor or a playwriter; and how it was that he became so soon as 1589 a

shareholder in Blackfriars' theatre. Certain it is that he had joined a company of actors very soon after he reached the metropolis, and that in Blackfriars' theatre, which was little else than an enclosed yard with a roof, his first plays were acted. In 1588, Shakspeare appears to have been in London, although whether his wife and family had as yet joined him there is uncertain. This was a great year in the history of the country-the year of the Armada-a year the stirring incidents of which must have deeply affected our poet's imagination-a year when for a season there was but one heart in England, and when round the figure of the British Lion, as, in the language of the poet of "The Armada,"

"The parting breeze of eve unroll'd that banner's massive fold,

The parting gleam of sunshine kiss'd that haughty scroll of gold,"

there rallied a nation of lion-faced men, who, even had the Spanish fleet not been broken by the winds of heaven, would have rolled back invasion, as the chalky cliffs rolled back the waves of the Channel. In the year when Napoleon intended to invade Britain, we were only threatened by one foe-Despotism; but in 1588, Superstition and Slavery had combined their forces, and how high the heart of the author of "Henry V." must have beat as he watched the grim unity of defiance which had bound together all classes of men against the common foe, and the wild enthusiasm which the tidings of their destruction spread over the land.

In 1589, the contest between the English Church and the Puritans was running high; and as the stage had abused its privilege by introducing matters connected with religion and politics, a commission was appointed to inquire what companies of actors had offended. On this occasion, the sharers in the Blackfriars' playhouse drew out a document defending themselves. This valuable paper was found at Bridgewaterhouse, by Mr Collyer, and there we find among the shareholders the name, "William Shakspeare." This is important, as proving that the poet was already a man of property and consideration in his own sphere.

In 1591 appeared some verses by Spenser, entitled "The Tears of the Muses," in which, while deploring the decay of the stage, he praises certain comedies so highly, that some have supposed him to allude to Shakspeare, and have inferred that Shakspeare had then produced some of his plays. In these verses Spenser calls his great contemporary

"He, the man whom Nature's self had made
To mock herself, and Truth to imitate."

What a beautiful idea that of Nature wishing to hear the reduplication of her own voice, and creating Shakspeare as her everlasting echo! It is the first and the finest compliment ever paid to our poet.

In 1592 and 1593, England was much afflicted by the plague the theatres were shut, and Shakspeare is supposed to have retired to Stratford. How he spent his time there we know not, but may conjecture him reading and laying in stores for the exigencies of future labours, or sketching out the plan of some of his mighty dramas. Up to this time, it is supposed that he had written "Pericles," the second and third parts of "Henry VI.," and the "Two Gentlemen of Verona." He also this year published and dedicated to Lord Southampton his "Venus and Adonis."

A clear field for the exercise of his powers was now left him by the removal of his two most formidable rivals-Robert Greene and Christopher Marlowe. Both were gifted, but imprudent and licentious men. Marlowe was incomparably the higher of the two in genius. Every one has heard of his mighty line," his "raptures, all air and fire," of what Hazlitt calls his "lust of power, and hunger and thirst after unrighteousness," his noble although imperfect play of " Dr Faustus," and his melancholy end: he was stabbed to death in a low tavern brawl. Greene, in a pamphlet written immediately before his death, insulted both Marlowe and Shakspeare; accusing the one of being an atheist, and the other of "borrowing feathers from his wing."-To this, Shakspeare deigned no reply, but seems to express his forgiveness to the poor unfortunate in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," where he describes

"The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of learning late deceased in beggary."

In the end of 1593, the theatres were re-opened, and Shakspeare was summoned from the country to resume his labours. In the midst of these he published his "Rape of Lucrece," and dedicated it, as he had done the "Venus and Adonis," to Lord Southampton, between whom and the poet acquaintance had rapidly ripened into intimate friendship. This young lord

seems to have been fond of attending the theatres, and had there met with Shakspeare. He appreciated his genius, and became his munificent patron, on one occasion, it is said, giving him a thousand pounds to enable him to complete a purchase. Whether this sum was or was not given by the patron, it does not seem to have been absolutely required by the poet. His property in the theatre had been steadily growing in value. We have seen him, in 1589, a proprietor in Blackfriars' theatre. Ere four years had passed, the company was so prosperous that another theatre, the Globe, required to be built; and in a year or two afterwards, they repaired and extended the original building. Hence our poet was enabled, in 1597, to purchase a tenement in Stratford, called the "New Place"-the best house at the time in his native town, and which he probably bought with the view of an early retreat from his profession. The next year we find one Richard Quiney seeking to borrow from him thirty pounds—a sure evidence that he was known to be in good circumstances. Altogether, next to Shakspeare's genius, his care and caution in the management of his temporal affairs strike us as most remarkable; and had other literary men, along with a twentieth part of his genius, possessed a tithe of his prudence, the half of Disraeli's "Calamities of Authors," and the whole of Emerson's essay on "Prudence" would have remained. unwritten. Parsimonious, miserly, speculative in moneymatters, we cannot conceive Shakspeare to have been; but he hated a debt as he hated a dulness, he feared a dungeon as he feared a condemned play, and was actuated-with a far happier result-by the same noble spirit which made Burns indite the stanza

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